Your Life is a Mythological Quest

The reason is because we identify them with the plots they are portrayed in. We love plots, storylines, drama, intrigue, love, adventure, high stakes, conflict, resolution.

So many storylines have a timeless quality. They could be told over and over again: The Odyssey, The Lion King, The Shawshank Redemption, Casablanca.

We love plots because, actually, we are plots. Our lives unfold as a series of conflicts and challenges we do our best to meet and overcome. We in turn create and consume more of the same in the form of stories we tell, novels we read, films we watch.

It’s as if we are part of some sort of feedback loop of storytelling. We tell stories and exist, in essence, as a character in our own story. We are characters in a story telling more stories.

The reason we enjoy movies is because the movie is retelling a mythological quest. Our lives are also retelling a mythological quest. In our lives, however, we are a little too close to the action to appreciate the larger story. In a movie we get to step back and enjoy the larger story without being identified with it.

Yet an unspoken goal at the end of every mythological quest is the same. It may appear in different forms: the love shared, the life saved, the honor restored, the disaster avoided, the past released. At the center of each of these endings is the same feeling: peace, joy, relief, a sense of wholeness restored. This feeling lies at the center of our unique individual storyline in every moment. In essence our storylines are all about one thing: getting to a place where we can experience peace in the present moment. It may not appear this way at first, but this is the truth.

The calm that lies in the center of all storylines is our true identity. And it is the true identity of the universe—that inexhaustible engine of storyline creation that creates storylines simply for the joy of returning to the peace at the center of itself after setting off on an epic mythological quest to find exactly that.

To learn more about discovering the storyline of your own life, click here.